Hi from Berlin, Germany

Hi everyone, wow today is the end of our fifth week here and we just saw Karen and Stan off on their bus to take them to the airport and home. Karen was excited to see the good old USA again and everything in English.
We are spending another day in Berlin before heading south this afternoon to stay with Craigs friends Dave and Nancy Fayram. Craig grew up with Dave in Concord.
Yesterday we went on the City Center sightseeing tour around Berlin. These hop on hop off buses are great if you dont have much time and want to see a lot. We first headed east of town and were immediately struck by how modern the city was. We then learned that 70/80% of Berlin was leveled in the WWII. Everywhere we went there was still new construction. We found out in London that they had just been able to pay off all their debts from WWII and had started a lot of reconstruction around the London area. So it seemed to be the same with Berlin. Plus a lot of foreign companies have come in and built skyscrapers, not tall but big. Sony, Japanese, has a huge glass multicomplex building in the city that really stands out. So their opera buildings and foreign embassy buildings were all new, or at least 60 years old. But once in a while you would see what looked like a pre world war building that had been able to survive and reconstructed. They had left what was left of a tower of a church as a reminder of the horrors of war and built a new church next to it. They have interviewed grandchildren of WWII generation and they all say We don't know where Berlin is going, it's in a state of constant building and change, but we do know where we were and we NEVER want to go there again. Its kind of sad to watch how 2nd and 3rd generations of WWII are trying to survive their horrible history and develop a new one of their own. But they are trying.
We first went to Check Point Charlie. This is quite a tourist attraction with the original border building still standing. It was surrounded by tourists, like ourselves, taking pictures. I was excited to find a gentleman who stamped our passports with commenorative stamps from WWII era. For a fee, of course, but it wasnt bad. Craig and I then went into the Checkpoint Charlie museum they had right there and it was incredible to see all the black and white pictures and read personal stories on every wall of how the people tried to escape, how some succeeded and how some failed. I learned a lot about the history of the wall and how it worked. What was really interesting was the museum was filled with young German teenagers who were actually studying their history and were interested in what happened too.
We then went on to their DOM church, main church, and it looked like the original old building, the outside was spectacular but we couldn't go inside to see what we were sure was beautiful. But by looking at all the postcard stands with black and white fotos of 1945 Berlin and what wasn't left, we realized that a bomb dropped in the middle of the church and so a lot of what we were looking at had been rebuilt.
We went then on to the Brandenburg Gate. This was built in the 1700s and Napolean, Hilter and other conquerors have marched under this arch. But what was sad that it ended up behind the wall which existed from 1961 until 1989. It became a symbol of freedom when the wall was finally torn down. It would have been exciting to be here when the wall came down as there was tremendous emotion as East Berlin was liberated.
Finally, we made it to Charlottenburg Palace. We don't know much about this as it was late and we couldn't get in, Craig and I are thinking about walking back there today but it was named for Queen Charlotte I think in the 1700s and survived WWII as it was in West Berlin.
We have had a spectacular time in Europe. We are not sure what we will do with Dave and Nancy tomorrow before we have to catch our flight early Monday morning. But there is so much we want to come back and see in more detail. We only scratched the surface but we still feel that our traveling views have again expanded as we have learned a little more European history and culture. We have loved it here.
We have missed you something awlful and so look forward to seeing everyone soon! We will be home late Monday afternoon and Karen and Stan are picking us up at the SFO airport.
Love from all of us to all of you.